Yesterday I was walking in the yard. I looked up and saw this owl.
For years, I have heard owls at night. I had heard them hooting to each other and even looked for them. But, I had never seen one.
I was no more than 30 feet away and it was getting dark. Except for its head, the owl did not move.
The owl was completely silent. In the trees above the owl, two squirrels chirped as they jumped from branch to branch.
I waited for the owl to fly away. It didn’t. Instead, its head seemed to follow the squirrels. First looking to the side.
Then, turning its head an easy 180 degrees, the owl looked behind. You know, Great Horned Owls have twice as many neck vertebrae as humans and can turn their heads 270 degrees in either direction.
The owl looked up.
That was the scene as night fell and all I could see of the owl was the dark outline of a large bird. All I could hear were the squirrels.
Turns out that Great Horned Owls can and do eat squirrels and just about any other rodent they can catch (and skunks too). But timing is crucial. Owls hunt at night and squirrels are active during the day. So owls have only a small window of opportunity to get a squirrel — like the minutes around dusk or daybreak.
I never saw the squirrels. I only heard them and now I was hearing their chirping sounds from my neighbor’s tree.
I heard nothing from the owl. But I saw the dark outline of the owl alight and fly over my head. Too fast to try for a picture. I watched as the dark outline of the owl silently disappeared into the dark outline of my neighbor’s tree.
My little adventure with the owl had ended. The owl’s night had just begun.
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